AMERICUS — Editor’s Note: Every Friday a list of local and area upcoming entertainment and cultural events will be published on the Steppin’ Out page in the Times-Recorder. To submit information for this listing, please send to Steppin’ Out, c/o Americus Times-Recorder, P.O. Box 1247, Americus GA 31709, or fax to 928-6344 or e-mail to beth.alston@gaflnews.com



Americus

Rylander Theatre

Sumter Players and the Rylander Theatre are partnering with the Food Pantry operated by Sumter Area Ministerial Association to help relieve the problem of hunger in the community. Everyone is invited to bring non-perishable items, canned goods and plastic bags to the Rylander Theatre on the days Blithe Spirit is being rehearsed and performed, Nov. 14-20. Monetary donations also will be accepted in cash or checks made payable to Sumter Area Ministerial Association. Donorsdo not have to attend a performance. The contribution center is located outside the main entrance to the theater on Lamar Street in downtown Americus from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Wednesday, 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 1-2:30 p.m. Sunday. Blithe Spirit will be performed at the Rylander Theatre at 8 p.m. Nov. 17-19 and 2:30 p.m. Nov. 20. Reserved seat tickets to all performances are available at the Rylander box office, 310 W. Lamar St., call 931-0001 or (tollfree) 1-877-662-2312, and online from rylander.org and sumterplayer.org.  Groups of 10 or more receive discounted rates.



Chamber Concert Series

Georgia Southwestern State University has announced its 2011-2012 Chamber Concert Series: Jan. 19 - Alfonzo Lopez, violin and Michelle Tabor, piano, Feb. 9 - Ensemble Chaconne, "European Masters in 18th c. London," Feb. 27 - Roger Chase, viola and Michiko Otaki, piano. All performances begin at 7:30 p.m. at GSW's Jackson Performance Hall. Season tickets for all concerts are available: adults/$45, GSW faculty and staff/$40, senior citizens/$35 and Habitat for Humanity volunteers/$25. GSW students and children 15 and under are admitted free of charge. Tickets to individual performances are also available. For more information call 931-2204.



Montezuma

Museum Hours

The Macon County Historical Museum is open from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and by appointment. Call the Montezuma Downtown Development Authority at 478-472-4777 for more information.



Atlanta

The High Museum of Art

1280 Peachtree St. N.E.

• The Resonant Image: Photographs by Chip Simone — through Nov. 6

The High Museum of Art is hosting an exhibition of 64 color photographs by Atlanta-based photographer Robert “Chip” Simone. Having worked as a classic black-and-white street photographer for most of his career, Simone embraced digital technology and color output in the year 2000, moving his experimentations with the medium into fresh and invigorating territory. This exhibition showcases the results of Simone’s recent explorations, presenting a tightly focused retrospective of the past decade of his work.

• A major multi-site exhibition of work by Brooklyn-based artist Brian Donnelly, a.k.a. KAWS. “KAWS: Down Time” will open on February 18, 2012, with a 22-foot-high, site-specific mural painted in the Margaretta Taylor Lobby of the High’s Wieland Pavilion, along with a 24-foot-long triptych hung in of the Museum’s Robinson Atrium. In addition, a gallery installation of paintings, drawings and sculpture will feature a grid of 27 tondo paintings, each 40 inches in diameter. Visitors will be able to watch KAWS over the course of a week in early February as he creates the mural exclusively for the High. The exhibition will also include KAWS’s monumental sculpture “Companion” (2010), which will be installed on the Museum’s piazza on November 18, 2011. “KAWS: Down Time” has been organized exclusively for the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, and will be on view from Feb. 18, 2012, through May 27, 2012.

“From their saturated palettes and seductive surfaces to their complex spatial geometries, KAWS’s paintings have a formal elasticity that is humorous and playful as well as complex, sophisticated and discursive,” said Michael Rooks, the High’s Wieland Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.  “KAWS has created a new order of American Pop—one that suggests the protean universe of New York abstraction re-imagined within the frame of Cartoon Network. His work is uncannily familiar but foreign at the same time, like in a dream, and it unites the often distant worlds of fine art and youth culture.”

 An influential member of a new generation of street artists who have successfully united commercial enterprises with their artistic practices, KAWS employs his skill and delight as a designer of toys and other objects in his practice as a painter and sculptor. The objects he produces for commercial consumption are in direct dialogue with his art; in fact, he thinks of his t-shirt designs as “drawings.” His new paintings in this exhibition allude to pop culture sources such as Sponge Bob Square Pants, as well as the more obscure work of artist H. C. Westermann, who also drew upon popular cartoon imagery in his work. “Companion,” which will be installed on the Museum’s Sifly Piazza, represents one of several hybrid figures created by KAWS who are part of a growing cast of characters. Enlarged to a monumental scale, “Companion” fuses a Mickey Mouse-inspired body with an inflated skull-and-crossbones head, an image that has become emblematic of KAWS. The sculpture’s contemplative pose recalls Rodin’s famed “The Thinker,” provoking us to wonder what is on the character’s mind and inviting us to empathize with its tragicomic posture.

• Conversations with Contemporary Artists: Glenn Lowry and Thomas Struth, 7 p.m. Nov. 1. Join the director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Glenn Lowry, and world-renowned photographer, Thomas Struth, for a rare public dialogue

• Lecture: Art as Biography: Van Gogh and Pollock, 2 p.m. Nov. 5.

Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith will talk about both Van Gogh and Pollock. Discover how both artists went on not only to create large and extraordinarily important bodies of work, but to change the direction of art in ways that affected virtually every artist who came after them.



Night Life:

Americus

American Legion Post 558

Ga. Highway 30 West

Open 6-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday

7 p.m. Tuesday is Bingo Night

Wednesday is Games Night

Open 6 p.m.-2:30 a.m. weekends

Friday is Grown Folks Night Out, featuring dance party, karaoke, music video and disco lights show from 9 p.m.-2:30 a.m. Presented by Monster Screen Projections

Saturday is Oldies Goldies Night

Sunday is Members/Guests Night



Astro’s “The Dance Clubb”

153 Sunset Park Road

Entertainment for 21 and over

11 p.m.-until

Thursday: College and Ladies Night

Friday: Midnight Special

Saturday: Dress to Impress Live

I.D. required

Valid college student ID exempt



Floyd's Pub at BEST WESTERN PLUS Windsor Hotel

125 W. Lamar St.

Hospitality Night: Mondays beginning at 9 p.m. employees of the service and hospitality industries enjoy specials on drinks.

Ladies Night: Tuesdays beginning at 5 p.m. ladies only enjoy specials on drinks.

Trivia Night: Wednesdays beginning at 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. test your skills at Wednesday Night Trivia! First Place winner gets a $50 gift certificate, Second Place gets a $25 gift certificate.

Live Music: Fridays beginning at 10 p.m. No cover, must be 21 and older with valid ID.

Nov. 18 — Cole Taylor

Nov. 25 — Lance Price

Dec. 2 —  Stephen Harrell

Dec. 9 — Tony Elmore

Dec. 16 — Heather Luttrell

Dec. 23 — Cole Taylor

Dec. 30 — Landis Frier

Jan. 6 — The Cowtown String Band

For more information, call  924-1555. Look for us on Facebook!



G.W.F. Phillips Lodge

The Lodge is open every Friday night with oldies from the ‘70s and ‘80s with Master TJ and Bronco Bill at the Elks Lodge. No teens allowed.



Pat’s Place

1526 S. Lee St. 924-0033

11 a.m.-11 p.m. Monday-Saturday

• Wednesdays, fresh oysters and shrimp October-April